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Glowing Skyline, Las Vegas, Nevada, 1953

"The glow of an atomic bomb test at Yucca Flat, Nevada, 65 miles [104.6 kilometers] away, draws Las Vegas casino workers on March 17, 1953. [National Geographic magazine's] Sam Matthews watched from a tarpaper-lined trench just two miles [3.2 kilometers] from the explosion. 'The atomic fireball rose in the sky, a giant sphere of orange and black, tongues of fire amid billowing soot,' he wrote. Though this photo was probably shot for his June 1953 article 'Nevada Learns to Live With the Atom,' it has never before been published in the magazine."